I needed this. It’s a trio of basic, low budget, supernatural slasher flicks with plenty of nods to the music, fashions, and satanic panic of the Gen X era.
THE BLACK QUARRY (2023)
This heavy metal horror comedy is only 49 minutes long, and I think it’s my favorite of this trio, but not because the runtime is perfect for my short attention span. Hell, the first kill doesn’t happen until 29 minutes in. In other words, don’t ask me what happened for those first 29 minutes.
Just kidding. We are welcomed by a witchy horror hostess. Not necessary, but a pretty, black metal babe dropping horror puns definitely sets the tone. The film has an old school, direct-to-video look and feel, and it takes place entirely during the day.
We then see a big, bad, bearded dude in face paint doing a satanic ritual and sacrifice.
The bulk of the movie focuses on the road trip of the members of a metal band and their manager. There’s some playful humor and banter as they travel to a quarry to shoot a music video.
The kickoff of the kills is much needed by the time we get to the 29-minute mark. The manager is singing Britney’s “Toxic” as he heads into the woods. All of a sudden, this awesome skeletal demon dude shows up.
It’s speed kill time! The massacre comes fast and furious, with victims being hacked up in very clever ways with their own musical instruments. I particularly liked the drummer’s hi-hat kill. The kills easily could have been spread out a bit more rather than crammed together in the last twenty minutes, and there’s little depth to the plot, but all that matters is that it’s a staple—playing heavy metal music leads to the horror. Insert the sign of the horns here.
ATTITUDE FOR DESTRUCTION (2008)
The play on the title alone tells you what generation of metalheads this one caters to. It even looks and feels like a shot-on-video flick from the 89-91 era, plus it begins with Ratt’s “Round and Round” during the opening logos. However, don’t expect any more licensed metal from the 80s beyond that song (which is used twice).
This is a straightforward, heavy metal/Devil worship plot. It even begins with a satanic ritual and sacrifice of a naked woman on an inverted cross. There’s blood, there’s gore, I think there’s a severed penis, and there’s even a little person thrown in for the hell of it.
Next, we meet the band. They land a record deal, but band member Drake, who thinks he calls all the shots, isn’t interested in accepting the deal. So…his band members stomp him to death and bury the body.
Drake doesn’t stay dead, and the guy playing him, despite underwhelming, living dead makeup, has a blast being sinister as he starts slicing and dicing all his former band members. What I want to know is where this dead Drake dude keeps getting all his awesome murder weapons.
There are several BJ scenes, a few full song performances by the band, and a couple of cute, shirtless guys.
Drake’s first kill isn’t until 41 minutes in, and while the kills are totally indie and sloppily executed, they deliver old school blood and campy fun. Especially the final frame.
THE DEVIL’S MUSIC (2023)
SRS Cinema released this one, and I was pleasantly surprised at its VHS throwback visuals and the totally bizarre blend of slasher and demon subgenres. I mean, yes it has a messy script, thin character development, and some hokey CGI kills, but I enjoyed the hell out of the gritty filter and dialogue that comes across as being dubbed in, making for some funny character reactions to the killers.
Yes, I said killers. This is so weirdly awesome. A group of friends gathers at a house in the woods. They bring up a tale of Steve the Miner, who was believed to have been killed in a mining tunnel explosion…only he didn’t die, according to legend.
And he didn’t. He’s still out there killing. He kills members of the group. He kills random people with no connection to the plot. Some of his kills are cutaway. Others are that bad CGI I was talking about.
Meanwhile, another complication arises. One of the friends plays a demonic record backwards and becomes possessed! He’s creepy, he’s entertaining, he loves to taunt victims, and eventually he takes on Steve the Miner.
There’s so much more that I enjoyed about this one. Everyone is wearing faux 80s fashions, hairstyles, and makeup that’s so bad that it almost looks like it is genuinely the 80s.
There’s a cop who looks like the leather man from the Village People. Sucks that he is killed off so fast, because I was living for his ridiculously fake handlebar mustache. He deserved character development…like horny leather daddy cop on the down low character development. He deserved it. He earned it.
There are a couple of campy, faux 80s music dance montages, a muscular dude boxes with Steve the Miner, and the final act is just loaded with 80s-esque horror vibes as the demon takes over the whole plot. Awesome.
